Italian-born French sculptor, master of universalist allegory.

Luca Madrassi was born in 1848 in Tricesimo, in Friuli, in north-eastern Italy. He began his artistic studies in Rome before continuing his training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was a student of sculptor Pierre-Jules Cavelier (1814–1894). He then joined the studio of Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, one of the most prolific and influential sculptors of the Second Empire.

Between 1876 and 1880, Madrassi worked as a practitioner for Gustave Doré, a singular collaboration that allows a better understanding of certain stylistic affinities between Doré’s sculptural works and those of Carrier-Belleuse, with which Madrassi’s studio constituted a technical and creative link.

He exhibited at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français from 1879, receiving several honourable mentions for his allegorical subjects in 1881, 1882, 1883 and 1885, as well as a third-class medal in 1896. He acquired French nationality and became a member of the Société des Artistes Français in 1890. He also exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1896.

His work is characterised by a formal idealism typical of the late 19th century: female figures draped in the antique manner, universalist allegories, putti bearing devices. The work in marble is of great refinement, with particular mastery of fluid draperies and transitions between polished surfaces and more animated areas. Madrassi died in Paris in 1919.

Literature

• BUSSE, Jacques (dir.), eds., E. Benezit : Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs vol.8, Köster-Magand, Paris : Gründ, 1999, p.947.

• PANZETTA, Alfonso, Nuovo dizionario degli scultori italiani dell’Ottocento e del primo Novecento, Vol.2, M-Z, Turin : AdArte, 2003, p.560.